Alex Heller-Nicholas is an established Melbourne-based film critic, and we were lucky enough to have to into class and run a special workshop.

 

This week, her workshop involved discussing important aspects of film criticism, and applying them to an in-class review we would do later in the session.

 

She proposed the question ‘what makes a good film critic’ and there were 6 main points she discussed in detail. They were:

1. Taste
2. Gender/privileges
3. Audience
4. Scale/detail
5. History
6. Context

 

I found the first point—taste – to be particularly interesting. We’ve done lots of writing this semester and have talked a lot about our persona and particular style of writing, however putting taste into the picture gave a whole new perspective when it comes to my writing. Taste is about establishing your view and setting yourself up before you critique.

 

We watched the 2014 short film directed by Lucas Testro called ‘I’m You Dickhead’, and this was such a fun and interesting exercise. We watched it twice. The first time we watched it, Alex encouraged us to throw ‘word vomit’ onto the screens, just messy, fast notes on whatever comes to mind to refer to later on when writing. However, the first time I watched it, I found it so hard to write notes as I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I thought to myself ‘how can I possibly write on this stupid little film that has no purpose and is so random I don’t even know where to start, plus I need to concentrate I can’t be writing notes while watching!’ So I had nothing writing down. Luckily we watched it a second time. I loved it the second time, and without even realizing, I was jotting down notes faster than I could think. I gathered heaps of little points and elements of the film.

 

After this, we had 30 minutes to write up a review, keeping in mind the important points Alex discussed at the beginning of class; so make sure to twine in your taste, the attention to detail considering the time limit, and the context of the film.

 

I was surprisingly happy with the result of mine, considering the short time frame we had to complete it. It was such a great exercise because it forced me to be punctual and fast with decision making, and I am so happy I wrote down all those notes to refer to because without them I wouldn’t be able to start! Such a good lesson in note taking.

 

We had to swap with the person next to us, so I swapped with Joss. It was so great because we both have such different styles of writing so we were able to apply each other’s knowledge and feedback into our own work. Joss has a very academic style in writing and is very articulate with her words, but I suggested she include more of her personal taste and persona. I described the detail of the film and what I liked/disliked, however she suggested I tap into reasons WHY I did or didn’t etc. to make it even more clear.

 

I always forget how important grammar is, not only in every day life but definitely considering we are in a writing course that predominately requires it! There are so many things that I always get grammatically incorrect, however when I write I never realize what they are, it’s not until I get it edited by a peer or Alexia that I realize them.

 

This class was super important, helpful and refreshing to go over some basic and confusing grammar elements.

 

 

The first one we dived into was the difference between a column and semi column. This one always gets me. I always find myself overusing semi columns, even when I’m not 100% sure they fit.

Semi columns are used to break up a sentence, and are stronger than a comma yet not as strong as a full stop.

Columns are used when it’s a factor relating to the previous sentence (e.g. a list) rather than an opinion.

 

The next one was the difference between a hyphen, en dash and em dash. I honestly had no idea they had different names. I knew what a hyphen was and used for, but had no idea what en or em dashes were.

So the hyphen is used for compound words.

En dash is the less used, is used in bibliographies.

Em dash is used to fill in information into a sentence.

 

This was interesting as usually I thought brackets did this job of inserting added information, a side note, into a sentence that was still important but not as important. Brackets tend to ‘whisper’ the content out, as if it doesn’t really matter but is just thrown in there. Instead, em dashes are for similar purpose however keep the same importance the whole way through.

For example: When the car finally arrived¾three months after it was ordered¾she no longer needed it.

In this sentence the ‘three months ordered’ part is a valid piece of information in order for the readers to understand more of the story, however if it was in brackets it would have the potential to be read as a whisper therefore not as important or valid.

 

I surprisingly loved this grammar session. It was really interesting and gave me a much better understanding of when to use particular symbols.

 

I’m excited to apply my new knowledge into next reviews and pieces of writing I do over the rest of the semester; not only in this class but other classes too!

 

 

 

Thinking about active and passive voices when writing, especially critiquing, is something I personally never really think about, so it was interesting to dive into this aspect a lot more.

 

I really think this aspect will help me in future writing because it often takes me so long to get to a point. I find it hard to find the words to use, and I find myself repeiting a lot due to not being able to clearly express what I’m saying.

This is where I need to think carefully and clearly about the sentence structure and what to put in front of the other in order to easily get to the point.